Category: music

The top touring artist of 2004 was Madonna, who took in $125 million this year. “The singer sold out 55 of 56 shows worldwide on her Re-Invention tour, making about $2.23m a night. ‘My Re-Invention tour was by far the most creatively satisfying experience I have ever had,’ Madonna told Billboard.”

Japanese conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki and Japan’s NHK Orchestra will perform all nine Beethoven symphonies New Year’s Eve in a marathon concert. “Iwaki will conduct members of the NHK Orchestra, with other musicians, in a concert that begins at 3:30 p.m., and will likely last over six hours. There will be five intermissions.”

Salvatore Licitra has been annointed by some as the next Pavarotti. He likes the comparison: “All singers have to thank Pavarotti because he transformed opera. Everybody knows opera because of him. I hope to become like him. All singers dream of that. Pavarotti and Domingo presided over the last golden age of opera. Now opera is in a dramatic crisis. Even in Italy young people don’t care about opera. They are only interested in TV, computers, fast and easy communication. To appreciate opera you have to know it.”

The New York Philharmonic will set the Guinness World Record for ‘the most concerts performed by a symphony orchestra’ with concert No. 14,000 on Dec. 18. “In the course of our 163 years, we have commissioned 128 new works, and performed 485 world premieres and 443 U.S. premieres, including music that has become a staple of the classical repertoire.”

Composer James MacMillan says recent events in Scottish arts have portrayed his country in a bad light. “Many people outside Scotland are beginning to speculate that Scotland is a philistine country, and I find this very troubling. I find it insulting but I can understand why it’s coming about because the indications from the top are precisely that. Those in power, those in the government, those associated with some of the arts provision in Scotland are giving marvellous impersonations of being philistines.”

Is it possible anymore to tell a coherent history of “classical” music? Richard Taruskin attempts it with a six-volume 3,800-page new history. “Taruskin’s chef-d’oeuvre, however, is a feast of contrarian ideas, with enough spice to sting the palate of anyone with a stake in telling the old stories in the old way. It aims for nothing less than the revaluation of practically everything you thought you knew about “classical” music.”

A production of Wagner’s complete Ring cycle is always the talk of whatever city is lucky enough to host it. But in London, the unthinkable is about to occur: two simultaneous Rings, being performed in two different opera houses by two different companies. It could be a rare chance to compare and contrast differing visions of arguably the greatest operatic accomplishment of all time. Or it could just be repetitive.

Richard Wagner was, by all accounts, a horrible human being, a vicious anti-Semite, and an extremist ideologue. That legacy hasn’t exactly tarnished his musical reputation, but it does give many musicians pause when asked to perform his works. “So, why bother with Wagner at all? Why grant him four long evenings, as in the case of The Ring? … One question is: can we live without it?”

The parents of a 13-year-old are suing Wal-Mart for selling music with “obscene” lyrics. “The lawsuit seeks to force Wal-Mart to censor the music or remove it from its stores in Maryland. It also seeks damages of up to $74,500 for every customer who bought the CD at Maryland Wal-Marts, and also naming record label Wind-Up Records and distributor BMG Entertainment in the legal action.”

True, Leonard Slatkin has recently lost two high-profile music directorships amid rumors of his increasing unpopularity amongst musicians in London and Washington. But John von Rhein says that the time is right for the Chicago Symphony to appoint its first American music director, and Slatkin, with his famous enthusiasm and 30-year history of good relations with the CSO musicians, might be just the man for the job.